Hi.

I'm Bri Garbani, a designer + photographer living in San Diego, California. It's here that I express my passion for dogs, design + DIY through writing + photography. If you like what you see, you'll want to check back often as I have a constant need to create + Native Blonde is my prime creative outlet.

Sep 3

Sep 3 Personalized Art

In moving halfway across the country + only taking artwork that really mattered to me, I had many blank walls to fill once we moved in to our new place with no real budget for doing so. Pictured below are a few things I did to make my home personal while being very budget friendly. These art installations are easy to recreate with your own touch.

California Ombre Watercolor - I simply looked at a map + free-handed the state shape with colored pencils + painted it in with simple Crayola watercolors. As my canvas, I used four pieces of specialty recycled paper that I had in my crafting box + attached them together in order to fill out the frame. Clustered together with a Grace Potter print + Vizsla artwork that I purchased from Dog Art Studio on Etsy, this piece completes a nice, bright accent in my living room.

Canvas Paw Prints - I made these with Duke + Dutch when we lived in Texas. In fact, I even put the date on the back of the canvases + added their age too. This project can be as easy or as difficult as you plan for it to be. Painting a few four inch canvases white was the easy part. Adding the paw prints can be challenging, but it is still manageable to do by yourself. Painting my pups paw, stamping it down just right, then dunking their paw into a bucket of water to be scrubbed with soap was the method I used. The real trick was keeping one dog away while the other was getting stamped, so more hands on deck might be handy to complete this task. Regardless, they turned out super cute!

Recycled Canvas Chevron Art - This project sounds exactly like its title. I took two canvases that my future hubby + I had painted on a date once + simply painted over them. We had photos of what they were before + photos taken the night we originally painted them, so it was easy to say goodbye. Besides, California living doesn't offer up a lot of storage space for us, so it made sense to recycle them into something new. I grabbed a few paints that were on sale from my local craft store along with some masking tape + got to it. Painting a solid color over the existing art, letting it dry, taping off the chevron arrows, filling them in with a gold paint, letting that dry, + then white washing some paint over both canvases gave me the result you see in the photos. I hung this artwork set on the side of my bed + its colors go beautifully with the fabrics + textures in our bedroom.

Framed Card Art - On my nightstand you'll find a bicycle print by Aaron Kuehn + a card that my future hubby purchased for me at Gwen Frostic's studio in Michigan. Not only does it remind me of a happy trip that we took together, but it also speaks to my love of owls + the colors couldn't be more perfect for our bedroom.

Vintage Dog Photography Collage - I started collecting vintage dog photographs in hopes of gathering enough to put together a nice, large framed collage. You can read about it how I got started here. I'm not entirely sure what made me buy that first photograph of a person + their dog that I did not know, but I can tell you that I'm glad I did. Maybe I started this for my love of dogs, vintage things, or the combination of both. I like seeing dates on the photos, the joy in the people's faces when with their pets, + the style of clothing from their time period. Although some of the people photographed in my collection may still be alive, I know that none of the dogs are. What makes this a little sadder is the fact that these dog owners were somehow separated from once treasured photos of their beloved pets because I personally purchased all of these pictures from antique stores; not a single one was obtained from an individual. One thing that brings light to that sad thought is that because I have their dog's photo, it is no longer sitting in a drawer at an antique store. I have it on display in my home + their dog lives on because of it.